Forgiveness: 3 Acts
by Little Obsessions
Summary: "She caresses his cheek and feels a calm, like a millpond, settles in her chest. No more adrift, no more cast to strange seas. She will not weep in the end; in the end she will always be Lady Grantham." Cora cannot ignore the knowledge of Robert's infidelity.
1. Act 1

This story will be in three parts, and is most certainly **rated M**. It makes reference to Puccini's _Madama Butterfly_, and follows the structure of an Opera, but it's hardly inspired by the opera itself.

I was never satisfied with the idea that Cora asked 'Are we okay Robert?' and that was the end of it. That has to be the least satisfying thing.

Please read, enjoy, and comment if the notion takes you.

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**Act 1 - The Opera**

Alien is the word they use for the faceless thousands pouring into Ellis Island. She remembers watching the curling line, seemingly endless, as her steamer surged away from the dock, past the statue, carrying her away from everything she knew. Her mother had stood by her side as they watched New York disappear, Martha's expectations so huge that Cora could almost touch them, and she tried to have hope and excitement when all she had truly felt was trepidation.

What title, she wondered, would be attributed to her after her debut in London?

It turns out it was Lady Grantham, though sometimes she thinks it might be synonymous with alien.

She was an émigré in reverse; bringing her own economy into a dying one, presented as a life-line to a haemorrhaging way of life. A pretty, witty, clever life-line.

And as much a part of it as she feels – a society lady, an established member of the British aristocracy – she also feels simultaneously alien, untethered from any identity she used to wear, and not quite fitting the one she is supposed to don.

She casts her eyes across the small space to her husband and watches him as he gazes out of the window, eyes following the river as it passes under London Bridge.

She wonders what his thoughts are, and it occurs to her – not for the first time in recent months – that she does not know her husband as thoroughly as she used to assume.

And the pain that revelation leaves in its wake is almost breath taking.

After all of this time, the sudden realisation that her husband may not be the man she thought he was has set her adrift in the solid life she thought she had built.

But then, she's barely had a moment to contemplate that. Her body has taken its time to heal, and even now as she shifts in her seat, she feels a deep ache in her bones, brought by the war, and the flu, and all the indelicate changes wrought upon them by the incomparable challenges of conflict.

And the silent agony she holds to herself; that her husband has loved someone else, someone prettier, and far more attentive, and far more pliant.

She cannot decide which emotion better fits the revelation: humiliation, pain, anger, despondency, surprise or pity, because all of them vie equally for position every time she dares think about what she knows, and he thinks she is ignorant of.

She watches him still, the softer lines of his face, the concentration as he takes in Covent Garden in all its winter glory.

And though she is tempted to reach for his hand, she does not.

If she is honest with herself, she is entirely glad to be free of the heavy constraints of Downton. London is shabbier now, ravaged with war, fraying around its typically polished edges; it reminds her of New York, with its ragged souls and its hungry searching. Here, she almost feels like she belongs. In Downton, despite all of her efforts – most of which have been a success – she never really ceases to feel just a little bit like an outsider.

Émigré. Alien. Lady Grantham.

"Are you excited?" He asks, just as their cab comes to a standstill outside of the Royal Opera House.

She pities him in that moment, pities his ignorance and his pride and his clear attempts at soothing a wound he thinks she does not know about.

Never one to disappoint, she dresses her mouth in a tired smile, "Absolutely."

He nods, and they both know the disconnect between them is there because neither will discuss the huge chasm they are slowly quarrying in their marriage.

She does not think she should be the first one to step into the abyss, and she does not know how to tell her husband – her kind, imperious, stubborn, adoring, brute of a husband – what she knows.

And what she has fabricated in the absence of facts. Lurid, fabulously torturous, nightmares she has in spite of her desire never to dream again. Did he touch the maid as he used to touch her? Did her lick and suck and kiss his way into her heart and her affections? Did he whisper his wants into her pale skin as he used to do with Cora?

"Rosamund said the box is very good," he offers his arm, and she takes it dutifully.

"I'm sure it will be."

"Are you cold?" He asks, joining the heaving crowd flowing into the golden lobby of the Opera House.

"Don't fuss," she says, with a bite she wishes would leave her voice. "I am more than content."

Of course, they both know that is a lie.

"What is on the bill tonight?" She asks, having not paid attention to what he had said earlier this afternoon, when he was proposing this meticulously-planned-to-appear-spontaneous evening.

"Madama Butterfly."

She can hear him struggle over the words, the very heavy foreignness of it all. The opera is so un-English, so entirely unlike something Robert would enjoy.

And while she should focus on the sacrifice in the act, the olive branch he is extending, all she can focus on is how foreignness seems to appal him.

And what that says about their union.

She was enough once: pretty, pliant, fertile, rich.

Now, she's not much more than a millstone he is obliged to maintain to save face.

And in spite of any evidence he might give her to the contrary, in the moments he tells her he loves her, or when he takes her hands in his, or when he holds her rigid body, or when he nursed her so gently back to health from Spanish flu, she knows it to be true.

She suspects, even, the pleading in his very blue eyes is fabricated from a sense of obligation, as opposed to love.

And all she ever wanted, all she ever needed, was for Robert to love her.

"Do you know the plot?" He asks.

She does, she read about it in _The Sketch_, and she knows instantly he does not. He would never have chosen this.

"I do."

* * *

She cradles her champagne in her fingers and feels him shift nearer to her. The box is indeed spectacular, and exclusively theirs for the evening, and as the darkness enrobes them, she finally breathes – relieved to be free of his scrutiny, and the shackles of being Lady Grantham and being pleasant and pretending that her very heart isn't on fire with pain.

But then the music begins, and as it continues and surges and dives over elegant notes and terrible tragedies, tears begin flowing down her face. A catharsis, a release, permitting her to feel all the pain she has been gathering in her bones.

She understand the betrayal so perfectly. She has lived with the desire for love from a man who can't quite give of himself entirely, because cultural divides stop him at every turn. She has lived the reality of sacrificing your own body, and your own dreams, and your own desires, for his.

She understands it so perfectly, and her tears are an acknowledgement of that.

She feels his fingers on her cheek, brushing them away, as he leans into her.

"Don't cry my darling."

And in the darkness, and through the ebb and flow of music that is eating into her heart and bones, and in the exhaustion of constantly fighting against her own anger, she finally finds courage.

"Robert, I know."


	2. Act 2

**Act 2 - The Lobby**

If the time they spent together before this had been at all silent, then the silence on their return to Grantham House is agonising.

But she cannot be the one to end it. She laid down the gauntlet, and now she knows she must suffer the consequences of her honesty.

And oh, how she hopes that he lives up to her desperate expectations!

Initially she had wondered if he understood what she meant, but now she can see he knows exactly what she was saying. He is ashen, and crumpled looking, and he is keeping a remarkable distance in such a small space.

They reach the house, the silence still intact, and are met by heavier silence. The staff are abed, and neither O'Brien nor Bates accompanied them at Robert's behest. The reality of having to dress herself hasn't been too hard a concept to handle and she had roped the housekeeper into it before they had departed earlier in the evening. The war has changed the realities of intricate costuming anyway, but the thought of asking Robert to help her undress has made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

It feels like a violation she cannot not endure.

They stand in the shadowed lobby, looking at each other for a moment, before he finally speaks.

"You know about Jane."

It is not a question, and to be fair to him he does not attempt to guild it that way.

She simply nods, wishing desperately she had not cast them so adrift, so far away from anything familiar to them. At least when they had been politely treading on eggshells, she had something to keep her tethered to their life before.

"I – "

She holds up a hand and her voice quivers, "I don't wish for you to make your excuses. Heaven knows, I have made so many for you. But the truth of it, for me, is that there are no excuses big enough to take away the pain I will endure by keeping this to myself. Knowing you would throw me over so eas-"

"I would not," his voice is shaking, and she looks at him properly for the first time – perhaps in years – and sees a terror so huge, gathering like a storm in every inch of his body, that it almost gives her pause.

Almost.

But it feels good to drive the knife in, to see him suffer the same anguish she has suffered these last few months.

"If I am no longer of use to you, if I no longer excite you, I will go quietly. I am not interested in your fortune – what_ used_ to be my fortune - or your estate. I will go. I will go with so little scandal you will be eternally pleased. But I beg of you, set me free of this."

She is entirely surprised by his reaction. It is not one of relief, of having been given the freedom to shirk his obligation to her, but one of pure horror as it contorts his face.

"Cora what on earth – "

"You no longer love me. I und-"

"Woman," he bellows, so much she feels the intensity of his desperation, feels the very colour of his words as they smash into her. "Let me speak, Cora, let me make amends for this, you must let me explain. I love you, of course I love you!"

And the tears that want to come at his words are consumed by her brilliant anger, and it finds voice right at the top of her lungs.

"Then why did you take another woman into your bed, into your arms, Robert?"

Her shout echoes around the hall, and the iron band that has slowly been squeezing the life out of her loosens, and her rage feels prodigious as it spills into being, flooding over them.

"I didn't, I –" he falters, words stalling. "I was tempted, I admit, but I never made love to her."

His admission makes her wince, and she wants to remind her terribly polite husband that there is a difference to be found in the act, despite the means and end invariably being the same.

One can make love, without loving. A commodity. A useful exchange of pleasure.

After all, that's all he had done to her for the first year of their marriage.

"You have made a mockery of me, and of us. And of all I thought we had built. You have taken that Robert, and you have destroyed it."

She continues, but where she felt incandescent with fury, she feels empty as the truth curls out of her lips, and sits, ungainly, between them.

"I never slept with her!" He suddenly screams, rushing towards her, covering the distance so surprisingly quickly that it startles her, and she steps backward, and her heel meets the stairs.

"I never took her to my bed Cora. By god I wanted to, I wanted her. I wanted her because she never once criticised me, and she needed me, and she valued me."

His hands grip her wrists so tightly her bones ache, and she feels sudden fear. She has rarely witnessed Robert as incensed at this, and his rage has never found target with her.

This, as unexpected as it is, feels so much better than the nothing that has sprung up between them.

"I wanted her because she reminded me of you, when you needed me. When I was enough for you. Enough to make you happy."

She pities him deeply in that moment.

But worse, so much worse, is the revulsion she feels at the very idea he would envy her success outwith the confines of what he thinks she should succeed at. There is something deeply unattractive about that.

"Let me go," she hisses, but there is a fraction of her glad to see her husband admitting it, and feeling his emotions so freely, and forcing her to listen to him.

And she is shocked at her own reaction, shocked as her skin prickles and her senses feel heightened.

"You stopped wanting me. We stopped - " he seems to lose steam, and she cannot help but feel victory at his sudden impotence. "Jane needed me. Someone_ finally_ needed me."

There it is, she thinks, the ugly truth of it all. The root of all of his flaws.

To be needed. To be powerful, to have her be duteous and awestruck by his god given power.

Her lord and master; it's almost laughable.

"I have always needed you, but not always in the same way. I don't have to be weak to need you," she whispers, shocking even herself with the revelation. "I have always wanted you and that is all that should matter."

Emboldened by the honesty, by the sudden urge coursing through her, she reaches up and presses her hands to either side of his face and kisses him so deeply, so thoroughly, without any coy preamble, that he gasps into her mouth as her tongue pushes between his lips. And then something shifts, something kicks into being, and he is holding her, his hands everywhere at once.

He takes her face between his hands too, and his teeth bite into her lips, and he pushes her hard against the banister and she has nowhere to go.

It should make her afraid – her typically reserved husband, only ever passionate to a mannerly degree in any public location, suddenly overflowing with animalism – but it does not, it makes her feel alive, and desired, and passionate and desperate to have him take her.

And to prove to herself that she still exercises power over him.

She feels his fingers, rough and unmeasured on the hem of her dress, then under it, his fingers grazing the top of her stocking, then cupping her intimately, fully, possessively. She grinds against his palm, regretting the necessity of underwear, moaning without reserve as his teeth bite into the tendon in her neck.

But her moan seems to break the moment, and he withdraws his hand so suddenly she feels bereft.

"Forgive me," he steps back, and the veil lifts. "I should never have touched you like that – "

"To hell," she gasps, almost viciously, feeling crippled by his propriety, feeling the nothingness between her legs, the humiliation of having been found wanting, "with your manners and your pride Robert. Do what you would have done to her, do it to me."

If he is embarrassed, even horrified, he does not show her. Instead she only feels the dull thump as her back is against the banister again and he pushes herself against her, leaving no space between their bodies, despite the chasm between their minds.

If she feels adrift, it's only because of the delicious haze his fingers are creating as they slide into her knickers and find her flesh wet and wanting.

He growls, sheer desperation, in his own response to her arousal.

"Tell me," she begs, clutching his neck as he slides his fingers into her, and she hooks her leg around his waist.

"You are so wet," he chokes out, repressed, forgetting that once they spoke like this freely.

Alone, but without constraints, he used to whisper all manner of filthy decadence in her ear. That was the Robert she had loved most; unencumbered, honest, desperate to be within her, and bound by something even she didn't think she was worthy of.

But then their son, and the war, and his pride, and her ignorance robbed them of that – thrusting them into middle age, into a stalemate of manners, denying them of the joy they had once derived from each other.

The surprise in his voice, the knowledge that he is shocked she is still aroused by him, and thus the realisation that he no longer thought she could be, makes her feel a sadness she can't quite understand.

"I want you," she almost sobs, "I want you, inside of me."

"I don't deserve your forgiveness," he laments, words hard and rough, like the fingers he is pushing in and withdrawing from her, and circling to bring her muscles to a painful, delicious tightness.

She pushes on his shoulders, so he is forced to pull back, looks into his eyes and then gropes the hard, pulsing bulge in his trousers. "This is need. This is what I need from you. This is what I want Robert."

And he has never been one to deny her, in spite of how it may appear.

Robert Crawley loved her once, desired her once, and it has to count for something, it certainly used to.

He lifts her, pulling her away from the stairs and towards the dark corner nearest them, where he pushes her up against the wall.

"I love you," he growls, his lips hard on her jaw, his tongue in her ear, his hands pushing his own trousers away.

She fumbles to take him in hand as he is released from the confines of his underwear, and she enjoys the hiss as she grasps him, almost too hard, and his knees almost buckle.

There is a violence to it that she will not deny. There has to be, there has to be rawness and pain and a thin line between pleasure and misery, and she knows they have been weaving across that line for so many months now.

And she wants to punish him, as equally as she wants to welcome him back into her body and her heart.

Cora Levinson. Alien. Émigré. Wife. And someone he wanted.

He has forgotten that, and so had she.

In this moment, as he rips her knickers away and thrusts into her with one sudden movement, she is reminded that she is much more powerful than she lets herself be, sometimes to massage the ego of her husband, sometimes because battling with the magnitude of his traditions is exhausting. Sometimes because it suits her to let him wield the power. And sometimes because he needs her to yield.

But he deserves more than that, the investment they have made in their lives deserves more than that. She deserves to have her husband again. She deserves to he happy.

"Take me," she moans as he grasps her rear and pushes her firmly against the wall, burying himself entirely inside her.

They are completely still for a moment, and she can see his eyes in the half-darkness, black with fire but tempered with insecurity, glistening with sadness and sparkling with desire all at once.

He has always been a fascinating contradiction, and that is why she was drawn to him from the off; desire glossed with a thin veneer of manners, fiercely proud and entirely bashful, a snob who cares deeply for those in need, an intellectual force whose naivety often blindsides her.

And so vulnerable under all that bulk and bluster.

There is something so disarming about his vulnerability, his desire to be loved, his need to feel important.

"I do love you," he vows, holding her still.

"Not now," she pleads, not yet ready for the truth she will have to face.

So instead he moves within her, long, deep, hard thrusts that feel vital and painful and delicious all at once. As if by reflex, his hand pushes between them to touch her, knowledge they discovered together, granted each other, and knowledge he now uses to his advantage. Her head falls against the wall, and he latches his lips to her neck, and his words only start to take form when she focuses herself on them, and not on the deep pleasure his fingers are bringing her.

"My love, my love, my Cora…"

_Yes,_ she thinks, as her orgasm builds at a breath-taking speed. _Yes, I am. In spite of the fact I don't want to hear it. I am yours in spite of myself, in spite of all the hurt. _

_I really am._

She cries her pleasure into the white-hot darkness, into the crackling atmosphere between them, and feels him still and lose himself within her as her body contracts. He moans his release.

And then the silence settles once again, but they are breathing into it, and she knows, now, that they will be alright.


	3. Act 3

Thanks to those of you who've taken your time to read and to review. I don't have a beta in the Downton Fandom, so all mistakes are my own (in spite of my best attempts not to make them).

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**Act 3 - The Bedroom**

"Can I bring you a drink?"

She looks up at him from the dresser chair and pauses before she nods, her ruby necklace dangling between her fingers, before she sets it on the dressing table.

"When you return, will you help me?"

"Yes," he turns to go, gingerly and unsure, after what has just happened.

She suspects the desire to leave for a moment is in a bid to compose himself, and she understands it quite perfectly. Had she expected that to happen? A quick, merciless rut in the lobby? No. But she doesn't regret it, not even for a moment.

"Robert," she glances at the clock, noting it is past midnight, but unwilling to let the moment go, "we must discuss this. There are still things that must be said."

He almost smiles, and she wonders if it is relief he feels. And then she understands why he wants a drink.

When he leaves, she takes just a moment to compose herself. She does not regret what just occurred – she enjoyed it immensely – but there has to be a quieter resolution, one not built solely on sexual release. The dull, alien ache between her legs is a delicious reminder, but it does nothing to dampen the anxiety of what she knows now must happen; bare, ugly honesty. A conversation about emotions with a man who finds navigating them extremely difficult is never particularly enjoyable.

Clearly requiring something akin to courage, she notes that he has obviously settled on taking the decanter of single malt from the drawing room, and two glasses, and he sets them on her dresser when he returns.

She stands up, presenting her back to him.

She watches his reflection, dishevelled, intimidated, his hair mussed from her fingers, his shirt tails hanging out, his exhaustion evident.

She feels like it's the first time she's seen Robert properly in months. She loves him, more than she should. More than she ever thought possible. And that is why the pain has been so voluminous.

He hesitates on the top button of her dress. And his finger falter, and he looks so vulnerable.

"I haven't done this for-"

"Years," she mutters softly. "How did it become years?"

He looks at her, truly looks at her, and all pretence flees, and she see pain so thoroughly on both of their ageing faces that it steals any vestiges of anger that lingered.

"What happened?" She asks, and he simply turns away.

She understands that he has to do so, and she does not take it as an insult. Robert is a proud man, and he will derive no pride from this.

But she expects his honesty. She deserves it.

"I was drawn to her," he holds the post on their bed. "And she-"

He stops and he raises his fists and presses them to his head and turns.

"And she stroked my ego," he spits out, not because he is angry, she knows, but because he is humiliated by the gross truth of it. "She was helpless, and I could help."

She moves to sit on the edge of the bed, feels the wetness between her legs drying on her thighs as she takes a seat far away enough from him that she hopes he won't feel smothered.

"How far?" She looks at the painting across from her, a gift on their first anniversary.

_Orpheus and Eurydice_. He has always had a penchant for Greek Tragedy, and she had thought it an odd gift. But he had explained it quite poetically; theirs was a love in spite of everything, in spite of challenges, and the beginning and the end didn't matter, not really, because their love had been quite true.

But the end _did_ matter to Cora. She had not set herself adrift to be left weeping at the end.

"A few kisses," he murmurs. "Nothing more."

She is shocked to discover she believes him. Truly believes him, and she knows that when her fevered brain had imagined her husband pushing the pretty maid up against the dressing room door and taking her there and then, she was merely allowing her worst impulses to get the better of her.

As, evidently, had Robert.

"I swear it," he says, as if the silence is an accusation he has to rebuke.

She nods and it takes her all her energy to make the next statement.

"She has a son."

The ferocity of his desire to convey the truth is so evident, and it clearly compels him to kneel before her, and he clutches her hand.

"It was nothing to do with that."

She tilts her face down, finally capable of looking at him. Looking down on him, she can almost believe there was nothing of his longing for a son – longing he denies, longing he pretends doesn't hurt him, longing he swears she plays no part in continuing – that drove him. Almost.

"I didn't take that away from you Robert, I didn't-"

"I don't hold you responsible," he vows, emphatic and desperate. "You, our daughters, are all I've ever wanted."

"That is a lie. Jane Moorsum is evidence of that," she says, so gently it must feel like a slap. "She has a son. I do not. And I will never give you a son. She is young enough, and she is - "

"Cora, I pitied her. I was a saviour to her. I pitied her son, fatherless as he was. Do you know how disgusted that makes me feel? That when my wife tried to reach out, when she became a leading force, I withdrew? I withdrew because the tides had shifted, and because she didn't need me in the same way. And so, I did what every other despicable bastard of my station has ever done."

She flinches at the profanity. It is so unlike him, so completely detached from how he normally is. But it does paint his ferocity quite perfectly.

"I turned to someone more vulnerable than me, someone who wanted me for my money and my power and for my help. I became everything I have ever despised about my class."

She watches the fury hardening his face, the humiliation filling every inch of him. She cannot bring herself to interrupt his monologue, because she needs to hear it.

"I was spineless in those moments. And I shall live to regret them."

She brushes her thumb over his hand.

"I don't want you to do that," she says softly, gently. "I just want you. I just want to get back to how we were."

He nods and lifts her hands and kisses her fingers and she feels tears coursing across the skin there.

"Will you be able to forgive me?" He asks, his words hot and hopeless and almost pleading.

"I have, I have already. Please, don't ask it of me again."

She caresses his cheek and feels a calm, like a millpond, settles in her chest. No more adrift, no more cast to strange seas. She will not weep in the end; in the end she will always be Lady Grantham.

"I love you Cora. I love you because you understand me and love me still…in spite of that."

"Let me be enough for you, let me be enough."

He nods, and stands, and pulls her body to his in an embrace which is overflowing with the peace she suspects both of them have been searching for.

"And tomorrow, take me home please."


End file.
